https://thealtnets.com/news/ Altnet and broadband industry news from The Altnets. en-gb https://thealtnets.com/news/voneus-paid-4-6m-for-airband/ https://thealtnets.com/news/voneus-paid-4-6m-for-airband/ Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT The administrators winding up Airband have filed their report, and Voneus, the only bidder, paid £4.6m for the rural network, its customers and its staff. ISPreview puts the debt Airband carried into administration at £312.3m, with the Aberdeen Group losing more than £228.8m of secured debt on its own and HSBC due £4m back on the £81m it was owed. All 135 employees transferred under TUPE. For a household on an Airband line nothing changes because a document was filed, but it is the clearest measure yet of what the network was worth to the only company willing to buy it. https://thealtnets.com/news/giffgaff-full-fibre-reaches-4-2-million-homes/ https://thealtnets.com/news/giffgaff-full-fibre-reaches-4-2-million-homes/ Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT giffgaff says its full fibre packages are now available to 4.2 million UK homes and rising, up from the 4 million it reported in mid-June. ISPreview puts new customer prices at £25 a month for symmetric 200Mbps on a 24-month term, rising to £32 for the top 900Mbps package, with free setup, unlimited usage, a router included and a pledge of no mid-term price rises. The footprint is nexfibre’s network plus some of the homes Virgin Media is upgrading from cable to fibre, so it is one group’s coverage sold under a second badge rather than a new network arriving. Direct switching from Virgin Media is still not settled. https://thealtnets.com/news/virgin-media-email-moves-to-junara/ https://thealtnets.com/news/virgin-media-email-moves-to-junara/ Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Virgin Media is shutting the email accounts it still runs and handing the service to Junara, a specialist provider owned by Atmail. Anyone with an ntlworld.com, blueyonder.co.uk, virgin.net or virginmedia.com address gets at least 45 days from their first letter to move to Junara, take their mail elsewhere or close the account, with a further 120 days in which an account can still be recovered. Current Virgin Media customers are offered 12 months free, subject to a 99p transfer fee. What a Junara plan costs after that has not been published. https://thealtnets.com/news/onestream-ad-banned-auto-renewing-trials/ https://thealtnets.com/news/onestream-ad-banned-auto-renewing-trials/ Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT The Advertising Standards Authority has told Onestream to stop running a broadband advert whose £22.99 a month headline left out two subscriptions added during the checkout: Onestream Priority Plus at £7.95 a month after a 30 day trial, and McAfee Multi Access at £34.95 a year. Onestream says both have since been taken out of the checkout journey. One person complained, and nobody has published how many orders were affected. https://thealtnets.com/news/digi-gigabit-fibre-reaches-10000-premises/ https://thealtnets.com/news/digi-gigabit-fibre-reaches-10000-premises/ Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that DIGI, the Romanian group building here through WhyFibre, is now live at more than 10,000 UK premises on Thinkbroadband’s latest data. Its three packages run from around £15 a month for symmetric 1Gbps to £25 for 10Gbps on rolling monthly terms, roughly half what most big brands charge for near-gigabit broadband. Coverage inside those towns is patchy and the company has said nothing officially. https://thealtnets.com/news/fibrus-launches-tv-over-broadband/ https://thealtnets.com/news/fibrus-launches-tv-over-broadband/ Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that Fibrus TV goes live next week from £7.99 a month, against a normal price of £9.99, carrying Freely and around 150 streamed channels over the broadband line with no dish or aerial. The same PLEIO box sells outright on Amazon for £99, and Fibrus has not published the terms behind the monthly price yet. https://thealtnets.com/news/starlink-caps-heavy-users-unlimited-plans/ https://thealtnets.com/news/starlink-caps-heavy-users-unlimited-plans/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that some Starlink customers on residential plans sold with unlimited data have had their download speeds cut to around 10Mbps, after a Terms of Service Violation notice telling them to move to a far pricier Priority plan. The accounts described were running above roughly 5TB a month, against an Ofcom average of 583GB for a UK fixed line. No UK customer has been confirmed as affected yet, which is the part worth holding on to. https://thealtnets.com/news/grain-half-price-broadband-offer/ https://thealtnets.com/news/grain-half-price-broadband-offer/ Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that Grain has put some of its full fibre packages on a half price deal for the whole of September, but the number of discounted months climbs with the price of the package. The entry level 250Mbps tier, normally £19.99 a month, gets one month at £9.99 on a 24 month term. The top 2Gbps package gets nine months at £15.99 before stepping up to £31.99 for the remaining fifteen. Worth reading the ladder before the headline. https://thealtnets.com/news/fake-government-broadband-doorstep-sellers-norfolk/ https://thealtnets.com/news/fake-government-broadband-doorstep-sellers-norfolk/ Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that Norfolk County Council’s Trading Standards department has issued a cold calling alert after several cases of fake doorstep broadband sellers in the county. Three people in orange hi-vis vests have been going door to door around King’s Lynn, saying they were part of a government broadband scheme and asking residents to pay to register for it. The scheme they most resemble pays grants through registered suppliers and stopped taking new projects at the end of August. https://thealtnets.com/news/cuckoo-customers-lose-static-ip-on-onestream/ https://thealtnets.com/news/cuckoo-customers-lose-static-ip-on-onestream/ Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that customers bulk migrated from Cuckoo to Onestream, after the customer base was sold in May 2026, have been put on CGNAT connections that share one public address between several homes. Those who previously had a static IP were first told the problem was being worked on, and one complainant was then told Onestream does not currently offer IP addresses without CGNAT. It only breaks things that need the outside world to reach into your house. https://thealtnets.com/news/italk-notice-to-appoint-administrator/ https://thealtnets.com/news/italk-notice-to-appoint-administrator/ Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that broadband provider iTalk filed a notice to appoint an administrator on 28 August, and that Telecom Acquisitions Group, the company behind Home Telecom, Eclipse Broadband and Fleur Telecom, has begun discussions with its administrators and suppliers. Its chief executive says suppliers have given assurances that no service should be affected in the short term. Nothing has been agreed. https://thealtnets.com/news/gigabit-voucher-scheme-closed-to-new-projects/ https://thealtnets.com/news/gigabit-voucher-scheme-closed-to-new-projects/ Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that Building Digital UK has closed the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme to new voucher project submissions, with suppliers unable to put new projects forward since 31 August. The grants were worth up to £4,500 a premises and helped rural and some poorly served urban homes and businesses pay for a gigabit install. Projects already under way carry on until the scheme closes on 31 March 2028. https://thealtnets.com/news/shetland-subsea-cable-feasibility-study/ https://thealtnets.com/news/shetland-subsea-cable-feasibility-study/ Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT A feasibility study into a new subsea fibre cable between mainland Scotland and Shetland has been committed to in the government’s five year work plan, with the stated aim of improving broadband and mobile redundancy. ISPreview reports two subsea cable breaks affecting Shetland in 2025 alone, with disruption often lasting several weeks. No route, cost, builder or date has been named. https://thealtnets.com/news/orkney-shetland-gigabit-contract-delayed/ https://thealtnets.com/news/orkney-shetland-gigabit-contract-delayed/ Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT The Scottish Government has confirmed the £40.7m Project Gigabit contract covering Orkney and Shetland is now only expected to be awarded later this year, nearly two years after it went out to tender. Around 13,550 premises are thought to be eligible, and the build would take about four years once it starts. https://thealtnets.com/news/tp-link-wifi-8-routers-draft-standard/ https://thealtnets.com/news/tp-link-wifi-8-routers-draft-standard/ Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT TP-Link has launched what it calls the world's first Wi-Fi 8 lineup, with pre-orders opening on 30 September. The standard itself is not due to be ratified until May 2028, and some features are scheduled to arrive by firmware update in 2027 and 2028. https://thealtnets.com/news/wildanet-writes-down-network-value/ https://thealtnets.com/news/wildanet-writes-down-network-value/ Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that the Cornwall and Devon altnet's 2025 accounts show revenue up 43% to £2.51m alongside a £17.1m write-down on its fibre assets, following a larger one the year before. A write-down is not money spent, and the build is where the real uncertainty sits. https://thealtnets.com/news/gigability-customers-given-notice-to-move/ https://thealtnets.com/news/gigability-customers-given-notice-to-move/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that people on Gigability's small full fibre network in Much Wenlock were given 30 days' notice that their service was being pulled. An investor says the Shropshire build has been on hold for about two years and only two customers are affected. https://thealtnets.com/news/building-safety-rules-delay-flat-installs/ https://thealtnets.com/news/building-safety-rules-delay-flat-installs/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT ISPreview reports that changes to how the Building Safety Regulator approves work in England are pushing back some of Openreach's new installs in large buildings, with dates that were days away moving by weeks. The rules were meant to speed the same work up. https://thealtnets.com/news/voneus-buys-airband-out-of-administration/ https://thealtnets.com/news/voneus-buys-airband-out-of-administration/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Three days after its lenders took control, Airband has gone into administration and Voneus has bought its assets and customers. The network is still running, and no changes to packages or prices have been announced yet. https://thealtnets.com/news/ofcom-revoke-code-powers-nineteen-firms/ https://thealtnets.com/news/ofcom-revoke-code-powers-nineteen-firms/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The regulator has opened a consultation on revoking the street works and duct access rights held by 19 companies. Twelve asked for it themselves, and the other seven have been closed or dissolved. Nobody loses their broadband over it, but the list is a plain record of which network brands stopped building.